Bandit?

I don’t want to be that guy!

There seems to me to be an underlying and quite entrenched misunderstanding of the term Bandit at my golf club, across a couple of social media sites and on some forums. I believe it is quite damaging to the enjoyment of golf from all perspectives.

To me a Bandit is a cheat. It’s not a word I like to be called and it generally draws quite a poor response from me.

A bandit is not someone who tries their best every week. A bandit is not someone who might happen to play to their handicap more than three times per year (a ludicrous statement!). A bandit is not someone who is consistently reducing their handicap through the documented and approved process set out by CONGU (or similar). A bandit is not automatically someone who can smash a drive nearly 300yards, they probably struggle around and on the greens and quite often will be any number of yards to the side of the fairway and playing many provisional balls.

My understanding of a bandit is ‘someone who protects their handicap’ to put themselves in a better position to win ‘special’ competitions.

That could be through throwing away points deliberately to finish competition rounds outside the reduction zone. It could be through playing at two different clubs and not maintaining your handicap at your home club (is that even possible in this day and age?). It could be through only playing non-qualifying’ events that don’t effect your handicap until your ‘special’ event.

I don’t want to be that guy.

I want to get to scratch or there-abouts and there will be many more 40-point Stableford scores to come if I am to achieve this. It’s not possible without them and it is possible for a low handicapper to achieve 40 points, how else would there be amateurs playing from +4 or +5?

I have found myself in a situation though.

I have entered this weekend’s medal competition at Coed-y-Mwstwr. If I'm free, I play each Saturday. On Monday and Tuesday I have two regional finals for the League to Dubai. VERY SPECIAL COMPETITIONS for me!! My game is feeling really good at the moment and I am certain I can do very well, very soon. I am going to try my best this Saturday. I may not win, but I am fairly sure that IF I can keep it in play from the tee (unfortunately a BIG if), I can get my handicap to come down some more. 

Would there be many (if any?) who would play their best in this situation?

I entered the League to Dubai competition as a 22-handicapper in March and have had my handicap reduced to 14.7 so far. I even volunteered a scorecard from one of my non-qualifying (for handicap purposes due to being from ¾ handicap) league matches to our handicap secretary so that my handicap would come down and people would stop calling me a bandit! I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes I bite (Sorry Martin!).

Anyway, I am going to try my best on Saturday and even if I do get my handicap reduced I believe I can still play well on Monday and Tuesday and the reduction will just get me one step closer to my golfing goal of category 1 golf. Also the fact that the League to Dubai competition is from ¾ handicap softens the potential reduction.

Feel free to leave a comment below or on facebook or twitter. I’m interested in your thoughts on my understanding of Banditness.